St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1887-07-07
THE NATIONS ANNIVERSARY.
st. Johnsbury Celebrates an Old Fash
Toned Fourth. The Days DOings.

Sc. Johnsbury Celebrates an Old FASH
toned Fourth. The Days DOings.
A blazing hot day, dense crowds OF
people, never ending racket and
many really interesting exercises with
no serious accidents made st. Johns
bury's celebration of the glorious
Fourth decided success. The boys
hardly gave Sunday fair show and
began their noises before the clock was
through its stroke of IL and kept it up
until daylight. At sunrise Major Be-
nett's brass IL FOUNDER woke up the
echoes from the other side of the river,
the trains began to come in loaded
with people from the country and the
celebration was fairly on.
The hOrribles appeared at 9 o'clock.
Though not extensive as to numbers
they made very fair show. The viii
lage water cart headed the line labeled
est Johnsbury's storm signal" Thad-
de6s Fairbanks old wagon of over half
century ago figured cOnspicuOusly,
and the st. Johnsbury band, the Pr
rates of Penzance, the toboggan chute,
Daniel in the lions den, the ID original
states including the Goddess of Liber-
ty, ETC., ETC., all came in for notice and
were loudly applauded along the
route of the procession. Meanwhile
the Victoria band of Sherbrooke had
come in, the suns rays poured down
with redoubled fury and soda and
lemonade flowed in rivers down the
threats of the cOuntrymen. One of the
marked features of the celebration was
the fact that not one arrest was made
during the day, there was no drunk
enness and everybody evinced dis
position to be good natured and have
good time. 1t is a great pity that
what was true of the day was not true
of the noisy hoodlums of the first night
and those who spent the second in the
lookup.
The "tug of war" came next, con-
tested on the school house common at
II a. m. Sides were chosen by j. H.
Thompson for the villagers and Cyrus
Sargent for the scale works. The
sides were very evenly matched but
through some little misunderstanding
it was finally decided to divide the
SIS prize money between the two con-
testing sides.
The Sherbrooke lacrosse club num-
bering 30 members gave an exhibition
game on school house common in the
afternoon. Though friendly game ii
was very sharply contested and gave
the many who were not familiar with
it an excellent idea of Canada's favor
lite sport. The four sides of the com
mon were densely packed with people
At appointed times during the day
day fire works were displayed from
Railroad street park and court house
square, and large fire balloons were
sent up, attracting the usual crowds.
The concert in the evening was very
good though not largely attended
The Victoria band, which gave good
satisfaction during the day, did re
markably we'll considering the fact
that they had been playing and march
ing pretty much all day. Two num-
bers were given by the quartet
Messrs. Tyler, Humphrey, May anG
Clark ;. Mr.. Silsby gave fine solo
''The Message from the King" an6
Mr.. Clark of the Ruggles street quar-
tet sang "The Vikings" with his usua
brilliancy.
After the concert came the fireworks
on Main street at the head of the plain
The plain was beautifully illuminated
with long rows of Chinese lanterns OIL
either side and across the street an(
the fire works were we'll managed by
Messrs. Bingham and Crosby and theil
assistants. The display consisted o
rockets, bombs, ETC., etc. Every body
and all their friends were there, there
were no accidents and the days cele
bration closed a complete success.